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That's what I did! If you go far down enough in the memory hole, you can often find the thruth as the events were occuring.....
A note to MODERATORS...THESE ARE ARCHIVED ARTICLES THAT I PURCHASED FROM THE NYT. I HAVE TO POST THE WHOLE THING...CAUSE THERE IS NO LINK OF REFERRAL.....
July 28, 1999, Wednesday
FOREIGN DESK
U.S. General Who Led NATO to Retire Ahead of Schedule
WASHINGTON, July 27 -- Gen. Wesley K. Clark, who led NATO forces in the war in Yugoslavia, will step down as commander of the alliance and be replaced by a high-ranking Air Force officer, White House and Pentagon officials said tonight.
The officials said General Clark, 54, would leave his post next April, three months before schedule, and retire to civilian life. His replacement will be Gen. Joseph W. Ralston, who was in line to become Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff two years ago but had to step aside because of a problem in his personal life, the officials said.
The departure of General Clark was reported in Wednesday's Washington Post, which said the move arose from disagreements that General Clark had with the Pentagon over the war in Yugoslavia. General Clark favored a tougher stance against President Slobodan Milosevic's aggression in Kosovo well before the decision to begin bombing in late March.
During the 11-week air campaign, General Clark also urged the Pentagon to let him plan for a ground invasion if the bombing did not force Serbian forces from Kosovo and end their cruelty toward Albanians in that province. And during the aerial bombardments, he repeatedly advocated more extensive air strikes.
But the White House and Pentagon officials who confirmed General Clark's impending retirement and his replacement by General Ralston characterized the change as a way to encourage General Ralston to postpone retirement and stay in uniform, rather than a maneuver to banish General Clark.
''Clark did a great job,'' the White House official said. ''He won the war, for God's sake!''
The Pentagon official offered a similar assessment. ''If this was in any way dissatisfaction with Clark, he'd be moved out long before,'' the official said.
Both officials, who said they are familiar with the events that began to unfold today, spoke on condition they not be identified.
They described the change-over as part of a series of moves involving high-ranking officers that will be announced in coming months.
General Clark, interviewed by The Washington Post from Brussels, declined to comment on what he might do next. ''There is a long time yet to do this job, and I've got to keep my attention on it,'' he said.
The White House official said Defense Secretary William S. Cohen wanted to do something ''to keep Joe Ralston in uniform.''
The general, a much-decorated pilot who flew more than 100 combat missions in Vietnam and has been in the Air Force for 34 years, seemed about to become Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 1997.
But he disclosed that he had had an adulterous affair in the mid-1980's. While the affair was hardly scandalous by the standards of sexual escapades that have embarrassed the military in recent years, it was enough to keep him in the post of Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs.
General Ralston's term as vice chairman is up in February and, by law, he would have to land a new military job within 60 days or revert to a lower rank and retire. Therefore, they said, the position that General Clark now holds was the logical step for General Ralston, especially since General Clark's term has already been extended.
The post of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs is not open, because the incumbent, Gen. Henry H. Shelton of the Army, was named to another two-year term two months ago.
General Clark, like President Clinton, grew up in Arkansas and attended Oxford University as a Rhodes scholar, but their time there did not overlap. Unlike some high-ranking officers, he seemed at ease in the diplomatic arena.
General Ralston is described by admirers as a first-rate officer whose career was momentarily derailed by his personal lapse. The general has confirmed that he had an affair with a civilian intelligence analyst in the mid-1980's while the two were students at the National War College and while the general and his wife were separated.
July 29, 1999, Thursday: FOREIGN DESK
Clinton's Adviser Defends Decision to Retire NATO General
WASHINGTON, July 28 -- The President's top security adviser today defended the decision to speed up the retirement of the NATO Supreme Commander, Gen. Wesley K. Clark, by a few months to make way for his intended replacement, and the adviser insisted that the move did not signal any displeasure with the general's performance.
''General Clark is a superb commander,'' Samuel R. Berger, the national security adviser, said. ''The President has the highest degree of confidence in him.''
Over the weekend, Defense Secretary William S. Cohen chose Gen. Joseph W. Ralston, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as his candidate to succeed General Clark as the head of United States forces in Europe and NATO commander.
Administration officials said moving General Ralston to the prestigious NATO post was the Pentagon's primary motive.
General Ralston is required by law to leave his current post by February, because he will have served the maximum four years. That timetable led in turn to the decision to ask General Clark to leave his post a few months early. He had been scheduled to retire next summer, when his extended term would have ended.
NATO officials said General Clark was taken aback by the suddenness of the decision to have him retire in April or May, a message relayed to him by telephone on Tuesday while he was traveling.
''His assumption was that he would remain as long as he was doing a good job,'' a NATO official said. ''This came sooner than expected.''
Several officials felt compelled to dismiss any notion that the general's many disagreements with the Pentagon and other NATO members in the Kosovo conflict might have contributed to the decision. General Clark urged a more aggressive bombing campaign and asked the Pentagon for speedier deployment of equipment and troops.
His insistence that NATO prepare for the possibility of a ground war was at odds with the Administration, which did not want to pursue an invasion that would be publicly unpopular.
Officials went to great lengths to play down the friction and turn the spotlight on the promotion of General Ralston.
Mr. Cohen and Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright joined today in praising General Clark.
''He's done an outstanding job in serving this capacity as Commander of the European Forces and Supreme Allied Commander,'' Mr. Cohen said at a news conference in Tokyo.
Last Thursday, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Hugh H. Shelton, met senior military commanders, including General Clark, in Tampa, Fla., but nothing was said to General Clark about his impending early retirement, several officials who were at the meeting said.
On Tuesday, when General Shelton telephoned General Clark who was on an official visit to Lithuania, to tell him the news, General Clark was upset that he had not been told in Florida, a NATO official said.
A spokesman for General Shelton said that the Chairman had telephoned General Clark as soon as the final decision was made over the weekend and that General Ralston had agreed to be a candidate.
General Clark said today that he considered the action part of a routine change of command. ''When a soldier's journey is over, it's over,'' he said in Vilnius, Lithuania, according to the Baltic News Service.
At the Pentagon and on Capitol Hill, reaction to was muted.
''I think this is much ado about very little here,'' said Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, a Texas Republican who opposed the Kosovo bombing but is close to General Clark. ''I don't think this is in any way a slap at General Clark. It's not unusual to make a two- or three-month adjustment in someone's tour to accommodate another officer.''
Lawmakers and officers praised General Ralston, who is 55. ''Joe Ralston will be very good,'' said Tillie Fowler, a Florida Republican who is on the House Armed Services Committee.
A highly decorated former combat pilot in Vietnam and an administrator known for his skills at building a consensus, General Ralston withdrew from consideration for Chairman of the Joint chiefs two years, ago after it became known that he had an affair in the 1980's while separated from his wife.
He had planned to retire next year to Anchorage, Alaska. But in his last two years as vice chairman, his 18-hour days, for example seeing to details like accompanying Ms. Albright to visit the Chinese Ambassador here on the night a NATO plane bombed the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, helped erase military and Administration concerns that he could not surmount the adultery reports.
Mr. Cohen cited General Ralston's ''diplomatic skills, his war capabilities and his war record.''
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